If only one could for a moment consider
music and the arts from the standpoint
of the early 1920s; then it might be
easier to understand the progressive
- even revolutionary – nature of the
music of Cyril Scott than it is today.
Like Constant Lambert’s ‘pink coat’
the development of 20th Century
music has blazed so many trails that
they must dilute that initial assessment.
Of those composers
who studied at Frankfurt-am-Main, who
had an enlightened continental attitude
to music yet untouched by the radical
ideas of the Second Viennese School
and were to a certain extent unconnected
with current trends in Britain, only
Percy Grainger has held a prominent
position. That respect is perhaps more
affectionate than critical, centred
on the perennial ‘Country Gardens’ and
‘Shepherd’s Hey’, with scant regard
for such innovative scores as ‘The Warriors’.
A similar fate has
attended the music of Cyril Scott who,
having contracted with Elkin’s publishing
house to provide an annual quota of
saleable piano pieces and songs, found
his reputation resting on what Christopher
Palmer called "agreeable trifles"
(the unkind and uncritical called them
‘potboilers’) such as ‘Lotus Land’ ‘Water
Wagtail’ and ‘Danse Nègre’. His
reputation also suffered a little from
a distrust of his un-English theosophical
and occult philosophies and his excursions
into dietary matters – and more, as
a result of well meant championship
from Debussy which pigeonholed his work
as ‘The English Debussy’. How significant
the Frankfurt tributary was as a whole,
with its lineage of Wagner, Grieg, MacDowell
and Delius, should be more seriously
evaluated. Certainly a reassessment
of Scott’s work is long overdue. Therefore
it is exciting now to find the first
of a promised series of recordings (emanating
from Canada – shame on our own musical
establishment!) that is to provide a
complete survey of the piano compositions.
This first double CD
is doubly welcome. It tackles at once
the myth that Scott’s short pieces are
mere ‘trifles’, but that even the slightest
of these is not only craftsmanlike but
also expressive of Scott’s highly individual
personality and in fact prefiguring
many of the later trends of the 20th
Century (Demuth used the word ‘prophet’)
The first of the discs
includes four of the seven works in
his music to which he gave the title
‘Suite’ – and the second disc contains
an interesting selection of the short
pieces.
So far so good. But
there are revelations! Apart from the
very original pastiche of the Suite
in old style (listen to the Sarabande
– more Ravel than Bach?) and the exotic
‘Indian Suite’ we hear for the first
time the vast canvas of the disarmingly
entitled ‘Deuxième Suite’ – op.
75 from 1910, dating roughly from that
experimental period that produced the
first Sonata op. 66. This Suite is an
astonishing work. Its architecture is
curious – two substantial movements
and three shorter pieces. It seems to
have no real structure, although it
is not a conglomerate of dance tunes.
Yet the theme of the second movement
‘Air varié’ is echoed in the
final fugue subject of the last movement.
In fact these two movements could readily
stand as works in their own right. These
are punctuated by the opening Prelude
(a progression of obsessive triplets),
a Solemn Dance which shares Quilter’s
world, and a dramatic Caprice. The Air
is a solemn extended theme developing
into a flood of arabesque, the piano
writing of considerable virtuosity with
constantly varied time signatures. A
cadenza-like movement leads, through
a decorated cortège section to
the final Coda which is very close to
the op. 66 Sonata in mood. The culmination
of this ‘Suite’ is an Introduction and
Fugue. A characteristic chordal progression
(shades of MacDowell) recalls ‘Pierrot
Triste’ and is followed by the fugue
subject, a variant of the Air from the
second movement. This chromatic figure
proceeds with cumulative inevitability
to a climax and the restatement of the
subject. The final work on this disc
is a joyous yea-saying Handelian Rhapsody
which one could well imagine played
with colonial gusto by the ebullient
Grainger (who edited the piece).
The second disc demonstrates,
in its judicious selection of short
pieces – those ‘salon’ items which Scott
had to provide in fulfilment of his
contract with Elkin – that Scott was
a craftsman sufficiently skilled to
invest such pieces as Vesperale and
Notturno that verged on sentiment, with
a rare enough distinction. There is
delightful variety – the delicate, Chaminade-like
‘Valse Caprice’ – and immediate contrast
in the solemn ‘Requiescat’ – a tolling
E flat pedal with a majestic climax
(written in memory of Archie Rowan Hamilton
who died of wounds October 1915). In
contrast with Vesperale and Notturno,
the enigmatic ‘Sphinx’ and the strange
‘Vistas’ – this last a set of three
atmospheric pieces whose opening ‘Lonely
Dell’ is an eerie evocation. The second
of the pieces is drenched with bird-song
recalling Palmgren, and the concluding
piece is a bucolic ‘Jocund Dance’ In
‘Twilight Tide’ there are unquestionably
echoes of ‘Voiles’ and no noses should
be turned up at the first of the Alpine
sketches – this is light music at its
best.
This well-chosen selection
is played beautifully by Leslie De’Ath
and complemented by a personal memoir
by the composer’s son Desmond Scott.
I shall look forward to subsequent recordings
– the ‘Poems’, (together with Scott’s
own verses)- the three Piano Sonatas
(op. 66 in its original form?) ... and
more?
Colin Scott-Sutherland
Leslie De’Ath (piano) 
